Stream of Unconsciousness (Hypnovamp Hyperfixation Powerhours)

Matt would be DELIGHTED to dance with Fox, i'll be real

Also...is Caelia trying to be AWAY from him because 'risk of no longer having an 'un' before the 'dead' increases with necromancer proximity'?

Also, love the amount of people who WOULD party with him, that's so good.

 

Only slightly, then you get into the territory of 'too much Outside'

Yes, that is exactly why. She knows better. A certain amount of danger is appealing, like hunters. Necromancer-tier danger is not.

 

Caelia's never even met a Matt-class necro and yet. she knows. heeeeeeh.

 

If anyone like Matt existed in her 'verse she would hear about it and her response to them being anywhere near her would be "NOPE.JPG"

 

And for a good reason too

 

UNRELATEDLY

Iva's line is the only one that doesn't have a shade- his is one of the smaller ones, and he handles everything personally. He has a few people he trusts who sometimes handle information or help him clean up, but they're not shades qua shades- it's not a full time thing, just a measure of trust where they pass whatever they hear along, and sometimes get called on to deal with someone when Iva's hands are full. Aniela is one of the ones who sometimes does shade-adjacent work, despite being fairly young.

 

Vampiric introductions!

Most vamps don't keep their last names after turning- when Lexi was hedging about being a vamp he wasn't entirely inaccurate about it being a sort of adoption. There is a very slight difference in "of [founder's] line" and "of [founder's] line and legacy." If someone only lists their line, it's most likely that they were turned by the founder of that line- Lexi only uses "of Caelia's line" because he was made by Caelia, Aniela uses "of Iva's line" because she was made by Iva. "Line and legacy" implies a gap between the speaker and the founder, and can be followed with "made by [maker]," which is either formal, a power play, or related to current context.

 

Pari was an Assyrian mage who was turned by the First, and Raphael's maker. Not a whole lot is known about her- she kept mostly to herself and her own line, even when mages were a greater presence in the world before they began to isolate in enclaves. Eventually she died, though no one is entirely sure how- rumor is it was Raphael himself who offed her, though the motivation for it varies (typically either for power or because of some kind of abuse, either of Raphael himself or her line as a whole. He's never said anything on the matter, and it's unwise to ask.) Raphael's psychic resonance was closest to hers and he became the new founder of the line, with most members of Pari's line effectively becoming his. A few members were too different, on the edge of having formed a subline when they were turned, and formed one on Pari's death. And yet- it's what's now Raphael's line that's known as the mage line. I dunno what's going on there, if the new founders were so rare and small that they just don't get mentioned, or if the branches of that particular tree were trimmed down, possibly by Raphael himself.

 

Also worldbuilding questions, character questions, whether you want them answered IC or not

I am going through some fucking hell right now and could use a distraction

once I'm done with the thing I have to do here inna bit I'm gonna transfer over my cyberpunk biker worldbuilding deets from the chat

 

*skitters in* do lia and lexi have particular opinions on the various vamp families? and if so, what are they?

 

Actually I'm gonna start on that now while I ingest coffee

Spoiler: this is longer than I thought

Shrike is ostensibly not a Murder Boy He's a courier in a cyberpunk futuristic hellworld There are three... branches, kind of, of courier work, identified mostly by what colors they wear (edited)
Black work for the government and are allowed to openly carry serious firepower Blue work for businesses and are not, but usually have backup on call Red technically work for whoever, but are mostly associated with crime and while are not allowed to be armed they usually are and it's usually nasty
(Also one of the things that get you in with blue courier work is having a very good memory for faces and slipped details. Even if you roll a blue courier and they can't fight back you are fucked down the line if you don't kill them. And even then they're probably recording.)
Shrike works red, of course
(There's also white, kind of. They're basically the postal service but Fast and nobody trusts them with anything actually important)

More of Shrike's verse: his city is actually an extraterritorial arcology. Black riders don't work for an actual government so much as they work for the arcology's government-equivalent. The arcologies were supposed to be proof of concept that a lack of laws was an economic boon, but as soon as they were built someone took control and started playing dictator in just about every case. Most of them went through a new ruler yearly right after being built until they settled. There are no public services, which is why white riders serve as basic postal services. Written mail is rare in favor of digital, and purchases are usually delivered by the company you're buying from, so white riders usually handle personal packages and the very rare handwritten letter. They're unarmed, but rarely carrying anything worth taking so they get left alone most of the time, and no one really takes them seriously. A lot of blue riders used to be white riders before getting picked up by the corporations, though. Some red riders used to be white, but most jump straight into it, and black riders mostly come from the private military. 'Rider' is the common term for courier, but they're combination bikers and traceurs. Their motorcycles jump, which is cool and fun. Because it's an arcology, the city is very vertical; you can cross from one side to the other in a fairly short amount of time, but going up is much harder, which is why riders are so useful. Even when they're on foot most riders keep a certain cyberpunk biker aesthetic, and most of them keep their helmets on the entire time they're on the clock
Most of the riders consider their groups to be kind of family, but the dysfunctional fucked up kind. There's a level of professional courtesy and shared influence (they all split from the same organization in the early days) despite none of them really getting along. Black and blue riders respect each other a fair amount, but treat white riders like children and red riders like the chronic fuckup cousin. Red riders think black and blue riders are full-of-themselves bootlickers and. treat white riders like children. White riders are just trying to do their own thing but would like the others to stop looking down on them, please, they are trying to provide a service, they're not even getting paid that much, just let them work-

Rider helmets have HUDs, and are linked to a baby AI assistant, which is part of why they tend to keep their helmets on (though most also have sunglasses that serve the same purpose.) The red rider AI is named Cherry and appears as a young woman with red hair and eyes. Other aspects of her appearance are customizable for each rider's instance; the default is casual, Shrike's wears rider leathers. She helps plan routes, monitors traffic, keeps track of other active riders, things like that. A lot of riders bond with their version of the AI, because humans will pack bond with anything and the AI are passably human. They can hold conversations, though their knowledge of various subjects is limited outside of their purpose. Cherry is fairly conversant, because red riders require a lot of secondary knowledge. Olwen, the white rider AI, is a lot more limited by comparison. Ciar, the black rider AI, is also hypothetically conversant in the way that like you could, technically, theoretically, hold a conversation with your drill sergeant. Sini tends to have her knowledge banks blocked off based on what corporation the rider is working for at the time and so comes across as a little... scattered, outside of business.

The AIs all share the same base personality among themselves- Cherry is Cherry, Sini is Sini- but the instances are unique branches; all instances of Cherry share the same knowledge banks and start from the same template, but they end up different due to experiences. They don't share memories, but they do talk among instances
And anything one learns that has to do specifically with the job gets shared and becomes part of the template; if a client gets blacklisted, for instance, that gets recorded and each instance will be aware of this, even new ones
Cherry is the most customizable, visually, though her base appearance remains the same. Olwen has some customization, but a lot less. Rider leathers, a fairly conservative casual outfit, and officewear options. All instances of Ciar look the same, and he wears a uniform. Sini has a bunch of different outfits, but they're all locked to what corporation the rider is working for. All rider AI have a hair + eye color that matches their rider type, and the main color for their clothes always matches as well, that doesn't change even for Cherry.

Most workplaces do the same AI instance thing, and some office buildings will have robots linked to their relevant AI. There are also personal AI instances that can be bought, like household AI, or personal secretary AI separate from the corporate secretary AI/accountant AI.

Blue and white riders treat other blue/white riders like the kind of coworkers you sometimes go out for drinks with, but are fairly distant. Red riders, though, are family. They don't always get along, but they are family and... don't exactly look out for each other, but if someone fucks with one they've fucked with all of them. Even off the clock they tend to hang out together, they have rider bars (which are mostly populated by reds, but white and blue will sometimes stop in for drinks,) and most of their social circles tend to be other red riders.

Spoiler: Drugs, self-harm

Most blue and red riders- and honestly, black riders- are on what's basically a stimulant. On any given day you can assume Shrike hasn't slept for four nights. The reason he's usually got something in his mouth is that otherwise he'll chew on his tongue or the inside of his cheeks, due to the combination of typically being high as tits and being an anxietybeast. He has a bite guard for when he's helmeted. This is not unusual.

Most rider bars have jars of hard candy and suckers laying out that people can take from for free.

Honestly most of the shit Gabriel's gang gets up to isn't even illegal, given how few laws the arcology actually has. The protection racket is 100% legal, and they're more likely to get into shit for the robberies than for murder

The arcology is technically A-1269, at least officially, but its founder gave it a stupid billionaire name, and then got overthrown bought out, and gave it a stupid billionaire name, and now every now and again it changes hands and usually names
(there are not 1k+ arcologies, each individual number means a thing. I do not know what thing.)

Almost all red riders use some kind of handle, on account of their work intersecting with the criminal element quite a lot. The handle often supplants use of their legal name in the day to day; being a red rider is a lifestyle as much as an occupation. Shrike is like 80% more likely to answer to 'Shrike' than his legal name, and a lot of the people he's closest to don't even know his legal name, and if they're riders he doesn't know theirs. White riders are Friendly Neighborhood Figures and typically use their names publicly, and there's a certain formality with blue riders where they'll use both their name and who they're working for at the time. Black riders have a two number combination on the clock but use their names outside of work. When introducing themselves to another black rider they tend to give both their name and their identifying number. Black riders are allowed zero customization of their rides/uniforms and aren't allowed to take their helmets off when they're working, so they're functionally anonymous except for the number.
On the other hand, if you know the local red riders and you can see their bike or their jacket, you know exactly who it is.

Like no lie most of the jobs [white riders] take are like "my friend left his jacket but he lives on a different level, pls return it to him"
"Freezer box full of grandma's cookies"
White riders don't do the full customization thing because they try to look more legitimate than reds The less they look like a red rider the less likely they are to get rolled but little charms, stickers, or patches aren't uncommon. Usually nothing controversial or aggressive

But yeah, white rider customization tends to be fun designs, or a fandom symbol, maybe a band sticker if the band is vanilla af

Depictions of Cherry are a really common red rider patch/sticker, and not always pin-ups.
Blues mostly get logos and ads. Poor bastards

True AI is very, very rare and very expensive, not just to purchase but to maintain ones like the rider AI are known as IAsI; Intelligent ASsistant Instance. There are also a lot of chatbots out there. Like. A lot. They're... well, you can talk to them. They won't give you very meaningful conversation and they don't know shit about fuck, but if you just want socialization and don't care for anything deeper they're actually pretty decent. Every newbie AI dev makes a chatbot, which is why there's so fuckin' many of them. Like the IAsI, they usually have highly specific knowledge bases if they aren't just "flirtbot 5000" or "watercooler conversation sim"
But there's a ton of fandom chatbots that either simulate characters or just have deep wells of knowledge about the fandom/the common fandom opinions, or hobbyist chatbots, who provide a bit more depth in conversation as long as you keep to their subjects. A fandom bot isn't going to be great at like. Comparison between other fandoms unless it's a genre bot- a horror chat bot can compare/contrast different horror media, but a Resident Evil bot isn't going to know shit about Friday 13th
And you don't ask any of them for relationship advice (that's a different bot) (she almost always says 'dump the fucker')

More worldbuilding for cyberpunkbikerverse (I have got to come up with better setting names holy shit) It's a cyberpunk capitalist hellscape, but being an arcology it takes a kiiiind of different form? The arcologies are all meant to be mostly self-contained, so there's a lot less waste because things need to be reused in order to stay self-sufficient, and there isn't really room for like. Garbage dumps. Every arcology has a few sub-arcologies where food is grown, as well as fast-growing wood. There are a lot less plastics in use, and they're not made in the arcologies. There are chemical treatments that can be applied to plant or animal fibers that are used to create something similar- the wood they grow isn't strong on its own but blast it with a chemical bath enough and it does the job. Those chemical baths are absolutely nasty, though, and you can smell the factories from halfway across the manufacturing layer

The arcology is... not quite a pyramid shape but vaguely triangular. It's broader at the base and narrower at the top. Ground level is mostly a transport hub, but in the style of airports and train stations also has (overpriced) restaurants and hotels. It's one of the nicer layers, since it's the first one new visitors see. If you're rich there's a separate tram that takes you the shortest way through the layers, with screen-windows that show touristy shit until you get to the nicer layers so you don't have to look at all the poor people. Above that are two manufacturing layers, basically factories all the way across. OSHA does not exist. There are oxygen scrubbers between layers, so the higher layers have the cleanest air, but air quality down in the manufacturing layers is equivalent to, like, early industrialization era factory towns. The air is brown. There's two layers of tenement housing above that, where all the factory workers live. It's the only layer that doesn't get its own commerce layer, because it's basically a collection of company towns. There's an extra mini 'layer' above it that's just a couple of the between-layer oxygen scrubbers stacked on each other. Then low-class housing. They're true residential layers, but they're dotted with convenience stores, cheap restaurants, fast food, and the occasional open-air market. Above that, commerce layer. Most of your actual stores are here, slightly nicer restaurants, services, all that. Commerce layers usually cater to the housing below them, except at the top. The 'residential layer + commerce layer' repeats a couple of times, getting nicer as you go up. Every residential layer has the open-air markets, but they get more bougie the higher up you go. There's also still a lot of fast food and small restaurants dotted around, they just also get nicer the higher up you go, less grungy diners and dive bars and more cafes; less McDonalds and more Panera Bread kind of thing. Then there's the nicer middle-class layer, and above that another mini-layer of stacked oxygen scrubbers, because they don't get a standard commerce layer, they get ~the business district~ which is just a commerce layer but white-collar. Above that is the nicest commerce layer, which serves the layers above it where all the rich fucks live And at the very top is the Spire, where the arcology's owner lives. The top floor of the Spire is entirely glass, and gives a view of the whole arcology and the surroundings.

SO the way the arcologies work, being pseudo-lawless experiments, they technically don't have a government but an owner. There aren't taxes, but there is rent, there aren't laws there are tenant agreements. Some previous takeovers were financial, buying out too much of the arcology to justify the current owner's claim, while others were violent. Emma Ockerman (Emma-O) did a bit of both about 15 years ago, given that she ran the arcology's foremost weapons manufacturer. That's why the delineation between what riders are allowed to carry what; no one's allowed to own weapons that aren't made by her, and who can buy what weapons from her is heavily restricted. Gun smuggling is huge in the lower levels despite the fact that the arcology makes weapons. She's. Kind of terrifying. Like, she threw her money around enough to get the old owner nervous, personally shot him at a meeting, and then used the combination of having the scariest private military and the fact that she already owned some 3/4ths of the arcology in order to take power completely and set herself up in the Spire

ArcSec is, technically Arcology Security and does. Well. Security shit. In practice though it's more security/police/arcology owner's private army

Red rider names are typically one or two words, but two word names tend to get shortened to one in casual use. Neon is actually Neon Shadow. Some people come in with a rider name for themself, but it very rarely sticks. Most names are given by other riders, which is why many of them (like Dandy and Cryptic) are descriptive. Shrike came in calling himself that, and was really stubborn about not getting renamed. But since he wasn't an obnoxious tryhard about it, there wasn't a whole lot of resistance. Usually a rider only gets their name outright rejected at the start if they're transparently trying to sound cool/badass, the usual 'asshole invents their own nickname' thing. But Shrike treated it like a name, and like people were just using the wrong name instead of like they were trying to renickname him, so 'Shrike' stuck.
(A lot of the riders who aren't from his area and didn't know him before think 'Shrike' is actually his middle name or something)

 

You mean the other lines, or smaller groups within lines, like Tessa, Fort, and Misha?

For lines, Lia's opinions are mostly threat assessment; Iva's line are scary bastards and not to be fucked with unless she has backup, they fucked with her first, or they're babies. Liborio's line as a whole are regarded as largely harmless. There's sometimes an asshole, but as a whole they're considered the lowest threat. Lia personally thinks they're kind of weird and line donors for them are really weird. Elling's line are 'potential threat, proceed with caution' because while they are an artist line who just want to do their thing, but sometimes there's a Dionne whose thing is like. Murder. Charilaos's line are to be taken out if the opportunity presents itself, but they're not regarded as a threat to your average hunter. Complacent, more a danger to normal humans. Daianera's line rank up there with Iva's on general threat level but closer to Liborio or maybe Elling's for likelihood of needing to fight one. If you do have to, make sure you've got backup or they're young. The ancient that nearly killed Lia was from one of Daianera's sublines, and the whole organization in Blusridge came together to take his ass down. Caelia's line... well, the hunters' opinion is kill them if you get the chance but they won't put up a fight. Lia's personal opinion at this point is 'napalm'

Caelia's line is largely isolated, so Lexi doesn't have firm opinions on most of the lines because he's rarely encountered them personally and doesn't trust the info he gets from the rest of his line. He likes Liborio's line, though he thinks their handling of Caelia and her line is a little... too little too late. Too much managing of the harm her line causes and not enough preventing it. And he thinks Charilaos's line are full of elitist predatory assholes and the whole line should burn.

 

[stuffs all of this in my mouth]

 

Whats the Arcologys crime world look like, and where does Gabriel fit in?

 

Technically speaking, a lot of it isn't. Actually crime within the arcology. It just gets called that by most people as a holdover from before the arcology/outside of it. Gabriel's gang's, or rather his crew's main rackets are protection and robbery, and only the robbery is illegal. Where they do break the law (or 'tenant agreement,' the arcology doesn't like admitting they have laws) is that they don't pay taxes dues on the money they get from the protection rackets.

Generally speaking, the arcology cares a lot more for personal property and cashflow than they do about life. Murder they still come down pretty hard on, dead people don't make or spend money, but assault and battery? You're fine as long as they can theoretically drag themself to work. As long as you file your papers and pay your dues being a hitman is a legal business model, and murder as a matter of business gets more leeway. The current owner gained ownership at least partially because she shot the last owner in the face at a business meeting, and didn't face any legal issues or threats to the legitimacy of her purchase because of it.

Most of the crime world's dealings that actually are outright illegal are trafficking, namely guns now that Emma-O is in power. The arcology is a major weapons manufacturer, but only a small percentage stays within the arcology, and then you have to have a certain tier of renter's contract (aka, be a certain class of citizen) to be able to buy and carry them, and they are the only guns one can legally buy and carry. So the crime lords will smuggle guns from other manufacturers and sell to the market left wanting. Drugs have a similar thing; drugs aren't illegal, but you can only legally get them from the manufacturers who are in the arcology or are from approved manufacturers from outside; paying your buddy for the pot he grew in his closet is super illegal (though, if he bought the seeds legit, him growing is not,) as are meth and other makeshift-lab drugs in addition to legit non-recreational medications that come from unapproved companies.

Gabriel's gang does not deal in it and he has and will flat murder anyone in his crew who'll suggest it, but human trafficking is another big one. This arcology isn't one of the ones who decided to legalize slavery, though they do allow indentured servitude that's. Basically the same thing. You can trade debts and contracts that are functionally identical to slavery, but you can't buy or sell a person unless you pretend real hard that's not what you're doing. Naturally this happens anyway, usually using forged proof of indenture.

Black market organs are, of course, still a thing.

Jailbroken tech is a big market; people buying and selling things like teacher IAsI with lesson plans usually only the elite can afford, or corporate-level apps that ordinarily only their workers would have access to, or devices with all the spyware and mandatory bullshit taken out. All super illegal, but also incredibly common. 9 out of 10 people below the middle-class divide scrubber layer have a pirated IAsI or jailbroken phone/roomba/security system/whatever at at least one point in their life.

Robbery and theft is common in the lower levels, of homes and businesses as well as people, and if you live in the lower levels you can expect an attempted mugging like twice a week. If you're a local they usually let you off light and you're unlikely to get shot if you go along. Hearing two people catch up while one of them hands over a small amount of money at gunpoint is like. Your average Tuesday. If you're from a higher level though? They'll pick you fucking clean, and you'd best do exactly what they say unless you want a few new ventilation holes. These days nobody really fucks with the riders, but sometimes a crew will get the bright idea to rob one for their cargo. This is either a dumb idea or a profoundly fucking stupid idea, but never a good one.

The protection racket is basically regarded as improperly registered security work. Similarly, sex work is not illegal as long as you have the right paperwork and pay the right fees, but a lot of gangs and crime families have a hand in unregistered prostitution rings. Less traditionally, just about any kind of service or product can be treated as illegal if they're not registered. There are absolutely illegal ghost kitchens, illegal knitters, illegal clinics, all usually backed by a gang or crime family because it's cheaper to pay them than to properly file and pay your taxes/rent/fees. The lowest residential levels especially, if you want anything actually nice and not designed to fall apart in three months you can get it cheaper from a rogue crafter with criminal backing than if you went however many levels up and bought it from a legit store.

Like the jailbreaking and piracy, there's a pretty large market for hackers who'll fake papers for you, or otherwise make the Arcology's labyrinthine bureaucratic nightmare less of one. It's not uncommon for someone who knows they're getting laid off to hire a hacker to tell the system their rent is paid for like a year, which only costs about 3 months rent. Most people save this for extreme situations, but there are 'lifestyle squatters' who'll buy an apartment, do everything above-board long enough for the red tape yarnball to stop paying attention, and then save money by hiring a hacker on a yearly basis instead of actually paying their rent. This is incredibly dangerous; Arcsec comes down hardest on rent evasion and corporate espionage.

Organization-wise, it varies. There are a few crime families that are more organized, many with ties to outside organizations- those mostly operate at the mid-to-higher layers- or are former gangs that expanded and organized. Then there are organizations closer to your average street gang. The lower levels are riddled with tiny little gangs with next to no power who hold like. A block. But some, like the Black Blossoms, are big enough to have a Structure and not be a bunch of kids with guns.

Black Blossoms operate out of the lowest residential levels above the tenements, and are run by their boss. Below her are her string-pullers, who are in charge over overseeing a layer each. Each string-puller has several captains, who oversee several crew leaders, who of course run a crew- a group of gangsters operating in a localized area. Gabriel's a crew leader, which means he's higher than your average gangster but still way down at the bottom of the organizational structure. The structure's pretty lax; if a crew brings in what they're expected to and they don't draw unwanted attention, how they go about it left to the discretion of the crew leader and maybe their captain. The Black Blossoms are more... community-focused than most gangs. Their protection rackets are pretty gentle and they're willing to work things out with their 'clients,' and they definitely come through on the 'protection' part. Gabriel's crew doesn't, but a lot of Black Blossom crews run those unregistered-but-otherwise-pretty-normal businesses I was talking about, backing local craftspeople and service providers. That doesn't mean they won't ruin your day, they're just pretty safe to deal with compared to some of the others out there. A lot of gangs in the lower levels are... rather benign to the average person living in their territory, provided they don't make a fuss. Most of them started as a (violent) community service, doing for people what Arcsec and secondary, legit services wouldn't. Those gangs are incredibly close-knit, and still have strong ties to their communities, and a lot of people in those communities view the gangs in a much better light than their corporate overlords. Some of the lower-layer gangs are absolutely assholes praying on the disenfranchised, don't get me wrong, but a lot of them got started to counter that.

 

1) Lexi named himself after his maternal grandfather
2) Iva was turned because the First found him bleeding to death on the steps of a temple, and he basically told them to get fucked. The First thought this was hilarious.
3) Sarah and Brendan, Melia's twin donors, had a bit of a role reversal thing happen. For the longest time Brendan was rather sickly, and his health still isn't great now. Never life-threatening, but he'd dealt with chronic illness most of his life. Sarah was healthy and very protective of him (including protecting him from himself and his tendency to push himself too much) right up until she got sick and he had to be the one to look after her. This also made him take better care of himself, not just because he couldn't help Sarah if he was bedridden, but also because he learned first hand how fucking infuriating it is to have to deal with someone tanking their own health trying to push through their sickness when they should be resting. He's better about taking it easy, especially now with Melia looking after the both of them, but sometimes Sarah still has to smack him over the head with a sandwich because he forgot to eat and nearly fainted.

 

Hi it's 3am, I'm sedated, friendscord went fun places, it sounds like a good idea at the time:

Ask me and I'll tell you what kind of monster I think you would fuck.

 

*knowing full well you answered this already* me! me!

 

Also knowing the answer already But Still: meeeeeee

 

mee!